I am living in Ireland and there are a lot of Region A locked titles that I am interested in getting and I was wondering if you could recommend a region free bluray player for me that would be under $250/€200? (including shipping)

also, if I was to buy a region A player from the US, would it work over here? Cheers!

I live in the UK and like yourself, I needed a machine for playing region A discs. I bought a region A player back in 2009 and after shipping , taxes etc it came up to £160 or thereabouts. However you WILL need to a good quality step down transformer and they cost around £40. The machine works fine in the main but on grainy parts, it looks more like noise than film grain. I believe the transformer affects this since I tried a voltage converter as well and the problem became even worse.

So to summarise, you CAN use a region a player in Ireland, its relatively inexpensive to get one but the transformer will cost a pretty penny and may degrade the picture (I think that it does).

If i had to do it again, I'd get a region-free player. They were around £400 in 2009 but seem to be a lot cheaper now.

I also need a multi region or region free blu ray player. I already have a good Panasonic home Cinema blu ray system, so if I was to get a region free blu ray player could I hook it up to my home cinema so i can still have the benefit of all the speakers when I am using it. Has any one done this here.

I do not own a blu-ray player at all yet as I've watched all my movies on my PC so far, but I'm getting sick of struggling to keep it region free so instead I'm looking into playing at least one region's discs on a player and the rest on my PC.

Now the question is, can anyone recommend a cheap blu-ray player that can be modded region free for DVDs and it'll stay that way? I read something about LG "fixing" this "bug" on one of their players so it could no longer be made region free for DVD playback and I really, really don't want something idiotic like that to happen

I do not own a blu-ray player at all yet as I've watched all my movies on my PC so far, but I'm getting sick of struggling to keep it region free so instead I'm looking into playing at least one region's discs on a player and the rest on my PC.

Now the question is, can anyone recommend a cheap blu-ray player that can be modded region free for DVDs and it'll stay that way? I read something about LG "fixing" this "bug" on one of their players so it could no longer be made region free for DVD playback and I really, really don't want something idiotic like that to happen

(I swear, times like these make me wish HD-DVD had won)

There really are no cheap options for region free players that is if you want the region free option to last. Your best options are either having a company make a permanent hardware mod or you can purchase a removable hardware mod for certain players. Neither are what I would call cheap but they work and will last.

Some of the old Insignia players had region free firmware but those are no longer available for purchase as new. You might be able to find a refurbished one but you'll have to make sure an old firmware is loaded. The down side is that some of the newer titles may not play.

Remember that Blu-ray was region free early on during the format war too. Had HD-DVD won there's no telling if they would have added region coding to their specs.

There really are no cheap options for region free players that is if you want the region free option to last. Your best options are either having a company make a permanent hardware mod or you can purchase a removable hardware mod for certain players. Neither are what I would call cheap but they work and will last.

I was speaking of DVD regions, I already know that blu-ray region hacking set-top players is nigh impossible, and pre-modded players cost an arm and a leg.

In fact, region free blu-ray players are so expensive it'd probably be cheaper to just buy another player and have one for A and another for B! (C is pretty much irrelevant) And that's including the necessary power converters so I could plug a US player into an Euro socket.

I guess I'd just be better off buying that Samsung player I was ogling at a while back despite having to do the whole "push a whole lot of buttons just to switch regions" thing.

I was speaking of DVD regions, I already know that blu-ray region hacking set-top players is nigh impossible, and pre-modded players cost an arm and a leg.

In fact, region free blu-ray players are so expensive it'd probably be cheaper to just buy another player and have one for A and another for B! (C is pretty much irrelevant) And that's including the necessary power converters so I could plug a US player into an Euro socket.

I guess I'd just be better off buying that Samsung player I was ogling at a while back despite having to do the whole "push a whole lot of buttons just to switch regions" thing.

Is that a US or European model. I know Sony's players, whether DVD or Blu-ray, aren't known for easy region free modding. In addition Sony's US players usually are never PAL compatible. That makes me wonder if the player being offered in that link is an European model or if it has been hardware modded.

I was speaking of DVD regions, I already know that blu-ray region hacking set-top players is nigh impossible, and pre-modded players cost an arm and a leg.

In fact, region free blu-ray players are so expensive it'd probably be cheaper to just buy another player and have one for A and another for B (C is pretty much irrelevant) And that's including the necessary power converters so I could plug a US player into an Euro socket.

I guess I'd just be better off buying that Samsung player I was ogling at a while back despite having to do the whole "push a whole lot of buttons just to switch regions" thing.

I don't know if this is still true but Denon DVD players were pretty easy to be made region free. Back at that time all you had to do was press a series of buttons to make the player region free and it stayed that way, even after powering off the player, until you changed it back. Of course those codes aren't published thus you'd have to find a player where someone has already discovered and published the code.

I've just received confirmation from bluraychip.dk that they're going to offer a solder-free mod for the Pioneer BDP-150 in January.
I assume it's going to be the same price as the BDP-140 mod which is $99 (€75) including worldwide shipping. The Pioneer 150 can be had for around €120 so that would be around €195 total.
Their mods are really easy to install and can also be removed without a trace in case you need to return it under warranty.

Is that a US or European model. I know Sony's players, whether DVD or Blu-ray, aren't known for easy region free modding. In addition Sony's US players usually are never PAL compatible. That makes me wonder if the player being offered in that link is an European model or if it has been hardware modded.

i have no idea

honestly id hunt down an oppo even though itll run u over 100 bucks

its truly worth it

i snagged one off woot.com years ago for 99 bucks and the thing has been flawless